Out of My Head: Five Songs I Listened to This Weekend

Lil Silk raps like he hasn't slept since 2006.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Now that we're a few weeks beyond A$AP Rocky's album promo run and the Social Experiment's surprise release of Surf, there's a lull of A-list major label rap releases until, hopefully, Kanye West, Drake, and Meek Mill drop later this summer. For now, I'm back to digging obscure SoundCloud streams, Martorialist links, and unspecified Twitter timelines in search of the music that'll keep you up at night. Let's examine my wares from this past weekend.

Justin Charity is a staff writer for Complex. Follow him @BrotherNumpsa.

Doujinshi "Ice Wing Angel"

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Released: May 21, 2015

This weekend me, J5, and David Drake were brainstorming Final Fantasy soundtrack cuts that London on da Track could flip as beats for Young Thug, Future, or Kevin Gates. As nerdy as that might sound, I'd suggest that longtime Final Fantasy score composer Nobuo Uematsu is, indeed, tremendously influential to the course of contemporary hip-hop production—trap music, cloud rap, traditionalist beats, etc. "Ice Wing Angel," below, sounds as much like Metro Boomin as it sounds like "Yuffie's Theme," which makes sense when you consider that many of these young ATL producers and cloud rap gurus grew up playing RPGs with 15-hour runtimes just like Prodigy grew up listening to his grandfather's jazz. 

Lil Silk "The Party"

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Released: May 30, 2015

I'm a year and a half late to Lil Silk's original gem, "Rapper," in which Silk soars spread-eagle through outer space and brags that he's got "whips like massa." On his latest tape, Son of a Hustler 2, sees Pusha T's "Lunch Money" and raises him "The Party," which features Silk tweaking and spazzing over a minimal, aquatic beat by Spaghetti J. There's more sober-minded stuff on here, like "Who Am I" and "Champion Music," but "The Party" is the one. Lil Silk raps like he hasn't slept since 2006.

White Gzus "Big"

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Released: May 28, 2015

Which 1970s TV opening theme is White Gzus' "Big" imprecisely reminding me of? Why do I immediately conjure hairsprayed white girls in bikinis doing that goofy bandstand snorkeling maneuver? How is it that a 2015 rap single is so unironically groovy? Will someone make a supercut of hilarious Scooby Doo scenes set to this song? They should. 

Lil' Chris f/ Sasha Go Hard "Ohh Na Na"

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Released: June 3, 2015

"Give it two years before you see a nigga in Forbes" is a pretty ridiculous boast given the general anemia of the U.S. music industry and the acute difficulty of generating millions of dollars as a street rapper, but Lil Chris is on a tear, so godspeed nonetheless. "Ooh Na Na" isn't as punchy or interesting as much of Chris' Made It Thru the Struggle, and the song is arguably just a darker, slower rehash of "Ran Up a Check." This version works best, however. Sasha Go Hard bags the Award for Best Quotable: "You know he loves you when he eat the pussy, bring his face up, and then he kiss you."

Rich the Kid "Why You Mad (Myth Syzer Remix)"

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Released: June 5, 2015

Rich the Kid's original "Why You Mad" is fine but generic. Contrast with this warehouse horrorcore remix that triples the force of the 808s and opts for a queasier pitch. Slight work, but it's Myth Syzer's version of the song that'll cut through a dancefloor's trap monotony and really get the people going.

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